The Orava String Quartet have lost none of their big sound or explosive energy. Their Saturday night Blackheath Chamber Music Festival recital was curated around the idea of folk music – through the prism of both modern and post-modern incarnations.
The first offering was from the Danish String Quartet and their quirky arrangement of several Scandinavian folk songs: Nordic Folk Music (2014).
The small melodic units were given a somewhat minimalist treatment but with a dynamic heft that spoke of suppressed edginess as well as a sweet softness and calm benediction (“Ack Värmeland, du Sköna” - from Sweden). “Ye Honest Bridal Couple” (from the Faroe Islands) had a plain openness - not unlike Copland and Appalachian Spring – but was also reminiscent of Scottish fiddle playing, as its foot stomping and jagged dancing rhythms emerged, varied by density if not development. This astringency whetted the appetite nicely for the Schulhoff.
The Kats-Chernin – For Theodora (2022)– was an engaging work with a deeply moving second movement – named after the second of the matriarchal lineage that this composition celebrates. The four movements contain portraits across time of Great Grandmother (Chrysanthe), Grandmother (Theodora), Mother (Katerina) and Daughter (also Chrysanthe). Mothering and grand mothering were referential in this commissioned work.
The darkness of the second movement, though ostensibly honouring a Greek family through Greek folk song, seemed to draw on the Russian roots of the composer, summoning the shadows of Shostakovich. This was grave, potentially searing music, but the composer managed to land her subtle bleakness into a hopeful slow wind down, as though having tasted death, she returns us to the living, alive but altered.
Kats-Chernin’s recent penchant for a pleasant open minimalist sound world was on display in the other movements, though the third section – Katerina - did display some quirky invention and mood shifts. The use of the folk melody linking movements one and four was useful, but this final movement would have registered as a pleasant amble without this structural piquancy. But maybe this was the point: a portrait of a young unformed human being.
The Schulhoff – Five Pieces for string Quartet (1923) - was dazzling, reminiscent of the brilliance of Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (1937), but full of its own near second Viennese school configurations and sensibility. The energy and attack it requires suits this group admirably. This was barbaric music that also had a sense of humour. The sheer physical pleasure of this work, its piling on of dissonance within a dance like framework, almost suggested early Schoenberg meets Baroque. Its risky sound world is deeply exhilarating, sometimes on the edge of grim parody, but always engaging and visceral, gripping in its well-crafted extremities. The sly shenanigans of the “Valse Viennese” had more dark chocolate than whipped cream, while the languorous threat of the “Tango” was particularly intriguing. The synthesis of his intersections and interests with Dada and Jazz seem perfectly logical in this dance suite.
As the cellist (Karol Kowalek) said in his droll introduction to this work, it is music that this quartet particularly respond to - its excesses charging their spirits and their playing. The frantic “Tarantella of the last section was breathtaking.
Schulhoff died in a Nazi war prison, in 1942: one of a generation of composers who are being rediscovered. The Orava are fine champions of his work.
Orava String Quartet – Phillips Hall, Blackheath, April 20, 2024
Gar Jones
The first offering was from the Danish String Quartet and their quirky arrangement of several Scandinavian folk songs: Nordic Folk Music (2014).
The small melodic units were given a somewhat minimalist treatment but with a dynamic heft that spoke of suppressed edginess as well as a sweet softness and calm benediction (“Ack Värmeland, du Sköna” - from Sweden). “Ye Honest Bridal Couple” (from the Faroe Islands) had a plain openness - not unlike Copland and Appalachian Spring – but was also reminiscent of Scottish fiddle playing, as its foot stomping and jagged dancing rhythms emerged, varied by density if not development. This astringency whetted the appetite nicely for the Schulhoff.
The Kats-Chernin – For Theodora (2022)– was an engaging work with a deeply moving second movement – named after the second of the matriarchal lineage that this composition celebrates. The four movements contain portraits across time of Great Grandmother (Chrysanthe), Grandmother (Theodora), Mother (Katerina) and Daughter (also Chrysanthe). Mothering and grand mothering were referential in this commissioned work.
The darkness of the second movement, though ostensibly honouring a Greek family through Greek folk song, seemed to draw on the Russian roots of the composer, summoning the shadows of Shostakovich. This was grave, potentially searing music, but the composer managed to land her subtle bleakness into a hopeful slow wind down, as though having tasted death, she returns us to the living, alive but altered.
Kats-Chernin’s recent penchant for a pleasant open minimalist sound world was on display in the other movements, though the third section – Katerina - did display some quirky invention and mood shifts. The use of the folk melody linking movements one and four was useful, but this final movement would have registered as a pleasant amble without this structural piquancy. But maybe this was the point: a portrait of a young unformed human being.
The Schulhoff – Five Pieces for string Quartet (1923) - was dazzling, reminiscent of the brilliance of Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (1937), but full of its own near second Viennese school configurations and sensibility. The energy and attack it requires suits this group admirably. This was barbaric music that also had a sense of humour. The sheer physical pleasure of this work, its piling on of dissonance within a dance like framework, almost suggested early Schoenberg meets Baroque. Its risky sound world is deeply exhilarating, sometimes on the edge of grim parody, but always engaging and visceral, gripping in its well-crafted extremities. The sly shenanigans of the “Valse Viennese” had more dark chocolate than whipped cream, while the languorous threat of the “Tango” was particularly intriguing. The synthesis of his intersections and interests with Dada and Jazz seem perfectly logical in this dance suite.
As the cellist (Karol Kowalek) said in his droll introduction to this work, it is music that this quartet particularly respond to - its excesses charging their spirits and their playing. The frantic “Tarantella of the last section was breathtaking.
Schulhoff died in a Nazi war prison, in 1942: one of a generation of composers who are being rediscovered. The Orava are fine champions of his work.
Orava String Quartet – Phillips Hall, Blackheath, April 20, 2024
Gar Jones